1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to work stations, and more particularly to a station having interhinged chair and desk sections which are separated in the active mode of the station to create an entry into the station, and are combined in the storage mode to form a compact cube.
2. Status of Prior Art
A work station is a segregated area usually in an office, that is outfitted with a desk and a chair for a single worker. The station is furnished with other equipment necessary to the worker's activity, such as a computer and a computer terminal or a word processor.
To create several work stations in an office facility, the common practice is to partition the available space into alcoves, each large enough to accommodate a desk and a chair and whatever equipment is required by a worker occupying the alcove.
The serious drawback of this multiple work station arrangement is its lack of flexibility, for the partitioning of the available space must be such as to make each alcove accessible without having to pass through other alcoves. Hence it is not possible to rearrange the configuration of the alcoves without radically changing the partitioning.
All work stations must provide the worker with a desk. If the ground area defined by the work station is small, there may not be adequate room to accommodate a standard office desk. Thus in the space divider system disclosed in the Morrison patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,024,030, assigned to Knoll International, Inc., a well-known producer of office furniture, the work station is such as to integrate the desk with the panels forming the walls of the station. In the Morrison arrangement, the panels are interconnected by slotted vertical posts adapted to support brackets which are cantilevered from the posts, a desk top being mounted on these brackets. One can also mount shelves on other brackets within the work station.
The concern of the present invention is with a self-sufficient work station that can be placed wherever a suitable site is available in an-office, a school, a factory or other facility. An example of such a work station is a library carrel for private study which takes the form of a partitioned nook adjacent the stacks in a library.
A typical carrel is provided with a small desk placed within the enclosure and a chair positioned next to the desk. The drawback of a carrel or other self-sufficient work station is that it occupies as much space when in use as when it is vacant.
In this age of information, computers linked to an Internet highway are essential to students. In some schools, work stations are provided for individual student use, each station being equipped not only with a desk and a chair, but also with a computer and a computer terminal. In this way a student occupying the station has access to a world-wide reservoir of information.
It is desirable that students not only be provided with computers, but that the students be-given an environment conducive to the efficient use of computer. To this end, a work station is the best environment for a computer, for it gives the student operating the computer the privacy he needs to operate the computer and to observe the computer terminal without being distracted by other students operating computers.
In many schools, whether public or private, space is at a premium and therefore must be put to efficient use. When a significant portion of the available space in a school is occupied by work stations, these stations which are only in use for a limited period by students in the course of a school day, nevertheless preempt the use of the space occupied by the stations.
Self-sufficient work stations, when not in use, may be shifted to one side of a room or to a storage area. But in either case, the work stations occupy as much space when not in use as when in use. And storage areas in most schools are incapable of accommodating a large number of work stations.
There is therefore not only a growing need for computer-equipped work stations, but also stations of this type that when not in use take up a relatively small space. Yet in modern schools, there is increasing pressure to provide the students with computers, for to educate the student and make available to him the wealth of information to which a computer has access, the student must be taught to operate a computer. Thus there is not only a growing need for computer-equipped work stations, but also for work stations that when not in use, can be converted into a more compact storable form.